Vanadongri woman's death was murder, not electrocution; lover held in Jalgaon

Nagpur police have solved, within a few hours, the suspicious death of a woman at Matoshree Layout in Vanadongri, under the MIDC police station limits. The death was first believed to be caused by an electric shock, but the preliminary post-mortem report showed she had been murdered. Acting swiftly, police arrested her absconding lover from Jalgaon.

The arrested accused is Javed Shaikh Shahid Manyar, 33, a resident of Shiv Colony in Jalgaon. According to police, the crime is linked to an illicit relationship.

Kavita Ganesh Pimpalshende, 38, a resident of Matoshreenagar, was found dead at her home at 8 am on Monday. Water was being heated on a heater in the kitchen. Her body bore marks of electric shock and burns. For this reason, electrocution was suspected and the death was initially registered as accidental.

The case took a new turn when the doctors who conducted the post-mortem concluded that Kavita had died of a heavy blow to the head. According to police, the accused had staged the scene using the heater to make it appear that she had received an electric shock.

Javed is an electrician by profession. He is alleged to have applied shocks to the body with the heater to make the death look like electrocution, and then pretended that water was being heated on it. On Monday morning, when her husband Ganesh did not answer the phone, relatives were asked to send the children to the house. That is when the matter came to light.

Police registered a murder case on the complaint of Assistant Police Inspector Gajanan Kothewad. The accused was produced in court on Tuesday, which sent him to police custody until October 17.

Police began the investigation from the murder angle. At the time of the incident, Kavita's husband Ganesh was at his native village in Bhandara because of his job as a security guard. Questioning him turned up nothing suspicious. Police then examined the call detail records of Kavita's mobile phone and found that most calls had been made to Javed. At the time of the incident, Javed's mobile location was in Vanadongri itself, while on Monday evening his location was traced to Jalgaon.

A team led by Police Inspector Baburao Raut, under the guidance of Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection) S. Hrishikesh Reddy, reached Jalgaon and picked Javed up from his home.

Police visited the spot and inspected it. According to the preliminary investigation, there was a dispute over the illicit relationship, and the murder is suspected to have been committed out of fear that the relationship would be exposed. Police are investigating further.